Submitted 2 hours ago by Tree@lemmy.ca to [deleted]
i think its disguting and immoral. i want to hear other people opinions on it. by biocomputing i mean dna used computer storage,neuron based computing ,and any other computing that makes use of living biology.
I would love to know this user’s thoughts on gay and trans people… Getting really tired of arguments from the “it’s icky and I don’t like it” crowd.
i believe they are people like me and like any other human. and that doing homosexual acts or transiting is a sin .
i respect their right to exist as long as they don’t force me to support them morally.
It’s just another frontier of science with its own risks and rewards. Sure there are ways to use or produce it immoraly, but it’s not inherently immoral.
DNA is just a polymer, one we have some capabilities in manipulating. It is not inherently alive, nor do it’s instructions necessarily have to relate to something living. When processed by living things they contain instructions on producing proteins, but they don’t need to be processed by living things and could be used to store arbitrary information in a dense environment.
Neurons, while cellular are not alive in and of themselves. They require a full host to operate, but are essentially weighted dynamic switches (interneurons), environmental inputs (sensory neurons), or outputs (motor neurons). Devoid of a host they are inert, but provided the right artificial environment they can function. “Function” just means operating in that input, switch, output mode though–it doesn’t mean being alive as a macroorganism, being sentient, or having feelings. Using a handful of farmed human neurons to play Doom is more an exercise in controlling the dynamic environment needed for the switch connections to be made, therefore, than an exercise in enslaving a conscience person.
Nature has been the source of inspiration and development since before the dawn of humans. I see no reason it should stop at the doorstep of biology–especially when the extent is cultured environments developed in a lab to be a facsimile of a part of a living thing. A part of living thing does not a living thing make.
Why is it OK for nature to do this, but not us?
And if it’s only OK for God to do, why did God let us develop the technology to do it? In fact it could be argued all science is divinely inspired - the Catholics believe this for instance - so this is God’s plan for us.
Just a bit silly to decide a whole nascent field is unethical because it rubs you the wrong way somehow.
god lets us do whatever we want,this world is filled with moral tests to see if we sin or hold on god morality. not every thing one can do is automaticly blessed by god.
I think there are serious ethical problems that we need to solve with science before we start using either natural OR ARTIFICIAL neurons in computers.
i think these problems are inherent to biology itself. like no matter what you do after the neurons reach certain number they will be sentient and suffer from being slaves to some computer actions.
There are many living things in the world, most of which we don’t really care about. No one asks a tree if it wishes to be a plank of wood. No one feels bad for eating a potato, and only some would feel badly about training an ox to pull a plow. There’s no evidence sentience is a product of the number of neurons; there are creatures with many more neurons than us that are far less self-aware. Much like the circuitry of a chip, it’s not the amount of copper and silicon that makes it work, it’s how it’s arranged. The cells themselves do not suffer, they are fed and functioning and that is sufficient, no different than a bacteria. Beyond that, a neuron based processor is no more sentient than copper and sand unless we design it to mimic a living brain.
Totally fine, it will be our technological goal. The natural biological functions that come from nature are far more powerful then artificial systems we build.
should we tho? i think morals should come before utlity. we should ask ourselves more if we should do smth rather than ask what it would grant us
Why should your morality be more important then mine? Morality is a deeply personal thing and a thing of the times.
Until 150 years ago it was moral to enslave people of different colour.
In some parts of the world it is still moral to withhold marriage rights to same sex couples.
are you talking about real morals humans follow, or nonsense “morals” written in a religious text several thousand years ago?
It’s definitely a gray area (pun intended). Research has shown that the neuron lab matter takes the normal gestation period to fully start communicating and organizing properly. So it suggests that its inevitable that neural matter reaches a state of completion ready for life at end of gestarion.
I.e. rat neurons are ready in a few weeks
so do you think its fine to make them and use them or is it too unethical?
I think its somewhat early in research. They are seeing they can process info through the neurons like computing, and that at full gestation period there is a change. However they claim that without external sensing and stimuli such as vision or movement or a way to interact with the environment that they arent sure if true conscious like behaviour would emerge, because an organism learns its surrounding and sense of self by interaction with the physical world. Its a scary topic that I don’t have proper knowledge to comment on how beneficial or horrific it might be
cattywampas@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Why do you think it’s disgusting and immoral?
Tree@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
idk it rubs me the wrong way,like what if they are sentient and we are tormenting them?
also i have some religious beliefs that ban altering of creation of god. and i think biocomputing would be included in that.
cattywampas@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
What if computers are sentient and we’re torturing them too?
unmagical@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
I encourage you to learn more about the subject and close some of your knowledge gaps. You still may not agree with myself on the matter, but you’ll hopefully be able to elucidate your concerns more concretely. As it stands now, however, “idk” and “it rubs me the wrong way” seem like a fear of the unknown which is an insecure basis upon which to construct a belief system or guide your principals.
I’m curious which greater religion you espouse. I’d argue that virtually any human action is one of alerting, and while predation, gathering, locomotion, and vocalization could be ascribed to alter in a manner consistent with a god given design, every action from cooking onward directly alters “creation” in a manner not inherent to our biology. That is to say, once we adopted tools and fire we ascended above the actions of other animals.
breadsmasher@lemmy.world 2 hours ago